Kodos
08-05-2004, 02:31 PM
But, there's no trading or injuries that last from game to game.
From IGN. (http://sports.ign.com/articles/536/536230p1.html)
A League of their Own
EA Sports announces online leagues for Madden.
August 05, 2004 - If EA's announcement of joining Xbox Live was the worst kept secret in the industry, then its announcement of launching online leagues free of cost to consumers for both the PS2 and Xbox might have been the best.
It's been rumored for some time and wanted for years, but the mere fact that the announcement is coming after the game has already been reviewed by magazines and only a few days before the game is actually shipped has got to be a stunner to fans of the series who thought they knew everything there was to know about their favorite football title.
Chip Lange, the head of the EA Sports Nation, broke down for IGN Sports how the new online system for Madden is going to work: "We call it the EA Sports Premium Pass. It's a set of premium online features for the user that put our online feature suite head and shoulders above everybody else," he said. "First of all, it works. Second, it's a new suite of features that I don't think people are expecting. The thinking behind this whole thing is that there is an elite Madden gamer out there and they want to be separated from the pack. There are a lot of different analogies, from a backstage pass to a V.I.P. room in a club, but these are all things where people are trying to get status and be elevated above the riffraff. When we talk to our hardcore Madden guys, this is what they ask for. Nobody wants to play against someone logging in for the first time who doesn't take the game very seriously. This is going to be a place where people can jump in and subscribe to a new feature set online and be elevated to a room with an elite group of gamers who will guarantee them the best game available online in sports. And the good news is, I know a lot of gamers are concerned about having to pay for features, but this year, they're free. They're being paid by Dodge. So you'll be able to sign up, drop in your credit card number as another way to verify your identity, put in your name and register, and there's no cost to the user this year. We've gone out and signed a deal with Dodge where they're going to be providing everyone's subscription free of charge."
Lange continued:
"The best analogy to this is the eBay Power Sellers. What we find is, right now, the EA Sports Nation is largely anonymous. Anyone can register a bogus e-mail address. We have guys with 500 personas on there. As a result, if you're losing and you pull the plug, and your DNF rating goes up, you just switch to another persona and it's no big deal. What we found is that the more we can get people to build up a single account, something that's backed by a validated e-mail address and backed by a validated credit card, the more seriously they're going to take the games being played on that account. That's the general concept. When you sign up for the EA Sports Premium Pass, it means that we have a validated e-mail from you as well as a credit card, so obviously your rep rating is going to go up. The more we know about you, the more reliable we can guarantee about you as a gamer. Everybody who's in here is going to be more serious about games than everybody else. The next thing is that everybody who subscribes, their name is going to show up different online. We call it name in lights. Instantly your status is going to be identified. So when you're in a match-up lobby, you'll be able to tell the subscribers from the non-subscribers. You'll be able to tell the hardcores from the newbies. There will also be a Premium Pass room online so you know when you go in there, you know everybody in there has given a credit card, is being tracked aggressively against cheating, and I think in general, that's going to be the equivalent to the back room in a club. That's where the gaming is going to be going on at the highest level. There are also going to be trophies and medals that are only available to Premium Pass members. We're also going to have sweet daily tournaments in the Premium Pass room where we give away prizes and exclusive stuff. On top of this, Premium Pass users are going to be able to hop in and get a 48-hour jump on signing up for the Madden Challenge. Again, you're being identified as a Madden elite player and you're going to be able to take advantage of being a member of this elite society."
But that's not all.
"We're also going to have something called Madden University. These are exclusive tip guides for the hardcore user and are only going to be available to the premium pass members. We've got hints and tips on our Web site already, but this just goes into a whole new level. It will be dynamic, so as everybody online discovers new things, we'll be walking everyone through what people have discovered. It's like when you play fantasy football and you sign up for premium information and stuff just keeps flowing your way. That's what is going to happen here. Probably the biggest feature that everybody is waiting for is leagues. Those are coming. We're testing them right now. We don't want to launch these unless they work. These are going to be ready to go this Fall, around the start of the NFL season. You're going to be able to create a league with up to 32 different guys. It will be tied in connection with the EA Sports Nation, so all of your Web pages will be tracking to the game and back and forth. Schedules and calendars are in there and on the Web site telling you when you have a league game, when there are special events, when you've got a tournament coming up. We've also added an e-mail system so when you provide your e-mail address and there's league news or a tournament, the commissioner can send an e-mail right through your Premium Pass that will be sent right to your inbox. Premium Pass guys will also be able to update their home page with their league logo, you can customize the ticker at the bottom, and we're going to move that ticker onto the Website so you can customize it. That way I can keep track of specific people on my buddy list and keep track of the scores of your games. That way, if you're on your EA Sports Nation home page, you're never out of touch with either the real sports world or your league or your EA Sports Nation buddies."
Nathan Fahrenthold, the EA Sports Community Producer heading up the project, like most gamers, is also excited about the leagues.
"When looking at Madden wishlists, online leagues always popped up as the number one thing people wanted. This is in response to the community's requirement for us to include some type of league system in the game. As you know, it's not going to exactly replicate the real NFL - there will be no trades, injuries, or drafting - but we will have an NFL style season, a commissioner, and the ability to run full leagues. It won't have living rosters, but the teams you pick will be relegated to the stats and roster updates that we do. But it won't have living rosters like ESPN has. The thing is, 800,000 people played Madden online last year at our peak. We generally have 10-12,000 gamers online at one time simultaneously playing. And that again is a very small portion of our community. We're hoping with our Premium Pass as well as this look toward integrity, that we can build that out. One of the biggest complaints that we have is cheating online. I think with the EA Rep and the subscription package, something that looks more at building integrity online, hopefully we can build a better way to play online. After leagues, that's the number one thing people ask for is a way to prevent people from cheating. When they sign up for Premium Pass, we're going to have all of their information, and you're going to be a lot less likely to cheat if we have this info. Again the EA Rep is a way to measure a persons integrity and accountability online.
We don't have the ability for player to give feedback, but we do have for the first time dedicated customer support and alert tools so people in game can contact customer support and report cheaters. A log of this game will then be sent to customer support and they will be able to act upon any glitchers or cheesers. Again, your stats, as far as you DNF (did not finish) rating will affect your rep. So it goes beyond wins and losses and ranks, and this way you'll get a much clearer picture of the opponent you're going up against."
The question many will have is, what does this mean for the future. Both Lange and Fahrenthold addressed the issue.
"At some point, we're going to get to a point where everything is in game," said Fahrenthold. "You're going to be able to do all of your trading and drafting, all of your typical fantasy football stuff on your TV and then go and actually play the games using the Madden engine and have that affect your league. So if Michael Vick gets injured when you're playing a game, that will affect your roster moving forward. Right now, you're going to be relegated to what Tiburon submits as the latest roster. That's where we're moving toward. We have so many things on the books right now, it's amazing. There are just so many things that we want to do. We just want to make sure that the stuff is air tight before we launch it to the public. Our coders have finished this first phase, and as they move forward year-to-year, you'll see tighter integration into the games. As for games beyond Madden, There's no reason why we would do all of this, especially technically in the backend and not do it for other games. At this time I don't have a list, but we're in the process of talking to each game teams, and we're trying to get them under this EA Sports Premium Pass umbrella, but right now this sponsorship only covers Madden. It's very doubtful that you would have to pay. If we offer a paid sponsorship for Madden, I'm pretty sure we'd have a sponsor for Live as well this year."
Added Lange: "This is an entire engineering team that's been working more than six months on this thing, so obviously that's a cost to EA and that's a product that we're bringing that's above what we would normally bring to market. So there has to be a business model attached to it right now. I think the good news is for users that Dodge stepped up and paid for the development team for this year, and we'll see how it goes going forward. We've got a dedicated group of guys building out this feature set so all through the year this is something that we're going to continue to add to. We want to make sure all of the hardcore guys who sign up early feel like they're getting they're money's worth…even if they are getting it for free."
"I think the goal is that there are going to be multiple tiers of online in the EA Sports world," said Lange in closing. "And I think just like all of the EA Sports titles, it's going to over deliver in terms of people's expectations."
-- Jon Robinson
From IGN. (http://sports.ign.com/articles/536/536230p1.html)
A League of their Own
EA Sports announces online leagues for Madden.
August 05, 2004 - If EA's announcement of joining Xbox Live was the worst kept secret in the industry, then its announcement of launching online leagues free of cost to consumers for both the PS2 and Xbox might have been the best.
It's been rumored for some time and wanted for years, but the mere fact that the announcement is coming after the game has already been reviewed by magazines and only a few days before the game is actually shipped has got to be a stunner to fans of the series who thought they knew everything there was to know about their favorite football title.
Chip Lange, the head of the EA Sports Nation, broke down for IGN Sports how the new online system for Madden is going to work: "We call it the EA Sports Premium Pass. It's a set of premium online features for the user that put our online feature suite head and shoulders above everybody else," he said. "First of all, it works. Second, it's a new suite of features that I don't think people are expecting. The thinking behind this whole thing is that there is an elite Madden gamer out there and they want to be separated from the pack. There are a lot of different analogies, from a backstage pass to a V.I.P. room in a club, but these are all things where people are trying to get status and be elevated above the riffraff. When we talk to our hardcore Madden guys, this is what they ask for. Nobody wants to play against someone logging in for the first time who doesn't take the game very seriously. This is going to be a place where people can jump in and subscribe to a new feature set online and be elevated to a room with an elite group of gamers who will guarantee them the best game available online in sports. And the good news is, I know a lot of gamers are concerned about having to pay for features, but this year, they're free. They're being paid by Dodge. So you'll be able to sign up, drop in your credit card number as another way to verify your identity, put in your name and register, and there's no cost to the user this year. We've gone out and signed a deal with Dodge where they're going to be providing everyone's subscription free of charge."
Lange continued:
"The best analogy to this is the eBay Power Sellers. What we find is, right now, the EA Sports Nation is largely anonymous. Anyone can register a bogus e-mail address. We have guys with 500 personas on there. As a result, if you're losing and you pull the plug, and your DNF rating goes up, you just switch to another persona and it's no big deal. What we found is that the more we can get people to build up a single account, something that's backed by a validated e-mail address and backed by a validated credit card, the more seriously they're going to take the games being played on that account. That's the general concept. When you sign up for the EA Sports Premium Pass, it means that we have a validated e-mail from you as well as a credit card, so obviously your rep rating is going to go up. The more we know about you, the more reliable we can guarantee about you as a gamer. Everybody who's in here is going to be more serious about games than everybody else. The next thing is that everybody who subscribes, their name is going to show up different online. We call it name in lights. Instantly your status is going to be identified. So when you're in a match-up lobby, you'll be able to tell the subscribers from the non-subscribers. You'll be able to tell the hardcores from the newbies. There will also be a Premium Pass room online so you know when you go in there, you know everybody in there has given a credit card, is being tracked aggressively against cheating, and I think in general, that's going to be the equivalent to the back room in a club. That's where the gaming is going to be going on at the highest level. There are also going to be trophies and medals that are only available to Premium Pass members. We're also going to have sweet daily tournaments in the Premium Pass room where we give away prizes and exclusive stuff. On top of this, Premium Pass users are going to be able to hop in and get a 48-hour jump on signing up for the Madden Challenge. Again, you're being identified as a Madden elite player and you're going to be able to take advantage of being a member of this elite society."
But that's not all.
"We're also going to have something called Madden University. These are exclusive tip guides for the hardcore user and are only going to be available to the premium pass members. We've got hints and tips on our Web site already, but this just goes into a whole new level. It will be dynamic, so as everybody online discovers new things, we'll be walking everyone through what people have discovered. It's like when you play fantasy football and you sign up for premium information and stuff just keeps flowing your way. That's what is going to happen here. Probably the biggest feature that everybody is waiting for is leagues. Those are coming. We're testing them right now. We don't want to launch these unless they work. These are going to be ready to go this Fall, around the start of the NFL season. You're going to be able to create a league with up to 32 different guys. It will be tied in connection with the EA Sports Nation, so all of your Web pages will be tracking to the game and back and forth. Schedules and calendars are in there and on the Web site telling you when you have a league game, when there are special events, when you've got a tournament coming up. We've also added an e-mail system so when you provide your e-mail address and there's league news or a tournament, the commissioner can send an e-mail right through your Premium Pass that will be sent right to your inbox. Premium Pass guys will also be able to update their home page with their league logo, you can customize the ticker at the bottom, and we're going to move that ticker onto the Website so you can customize it. That way I can keep track of specific people on my buddy list and keep track of the scores of your games. That way, if you're on your EA Sports Nation home page, you're never out of touch with either the real sports world or your league or your EA Sports Nation buddies."
Nathan Fahrenthold, the EA Sports Community Producer heading up the project, like most gamers, is also excited about the leagues.
"When looking at Madden wishlists, online leagues always popped up as the number one thing people wanted. This is in response to the community's requirement for us to include some type of league system in the game. As you know, it's not going to exactly replicate the real NFL - there will be no trades, injuries, or drafting - but we will have an NFL style season, a commissioner, and the ability to run full leagues. It won't have living rosters, but the teams you pick will be relegated to the stats and roster updates that we do. But it won't have living rosters like ESPN has. The thing is, 800,000 people played Madden online last year at our peak. We generally have 10-12,000 gamers online at one time simultaneously playing. And that again is a very small portion of our community. We're hoping with our Premium Pass as well as this look toward integrity, that we can build that out. One of the biggest complaints that we have is cheating online. I think with the EA Rep and the subscription package, something that looks more at building integrity online, hopefully we can build a better way to play online. After leagues, that's the number one thing people ask for is a way to prevent people from cheating. When they sign up for Premium Pass, we're going to have all of their information, and you're going to be a lot less likely to cheat if we have this info. Again the EA Rep is a way to measure a persons integrity and accountability online.
We don't have the ability for player to give feedback, but we do have for the first time dedicated customer support and alert tools so people in game can contact customer support and report cheaters. A log of this game will then be sent to customer support and they will be able to act upon any glitchers or cheesers. Again, your stats, as far as you DNF (did not finish) rating will affect your rep. So it goes beyond wins and losses and ranks, and this way you'll get a much clearer picture of the opponent you're going up against."
The question many will have is, what does this mean for the future. Both Lange and Fahrenthold addressed the issue.
"At some point, we're going to get to a point where everything is in game," said Fahrenthold. "You're going to be able to do all of your trading and drafting, all of your typical fantasy football stuff on your TV and then go and actually play the games using the Madden engine and have that affect your league. So if Michael Vick gets injured when you're playing a game, that will affect your roster moving forward. Right now, you're going to be relegated to what Tiburon submits as the latest roster. That's where we're moving toward. We have so many things on the books right now, it's amazing. There are just so many things that we want to do. We just want to make sure that the stuff is air tight before we launch it to the public. Our coders have finished this first phase, and as they move forward year-to-year, you'll see tighter integration into the games. As for games beyond Madden, There's no reason why we would do all of this, especially technically in the backend and not do it for other games. At this time I don't have a list, but we're in the process of talking to each game teams, and we're trying to get them under this EA Sports Premium Pass umbrella, but right now this sponsorship only covers Madden. It's very doubtful that you would have to pay. If we offer a paid sponsorship for Madden, I'm pretty sure we'd have a sponsor for Live as well this year."
Added Lange: "This is an entire engineering team that's been working more than six months on this thing, so obviously that's a cost to EA and that's a product that we're bringing that's above what we would normally bring to market. So there has to be a business model attached to it right now. I think the good news is for users that Dodge stepped up and paid for the development team for this year, and we'll see how it goes going forward. We've got a dedicated group of guys building out this feature set so all through the year this is something that we're going to continue to add to. We want to make sure all of the hardcore guys who sign up early feel like they're getting they're money's worth…even if they are getting it for free."
"I think the goal is that there are going to be multiple tiers of online in the EA Sports world," said Lange in closing. "And I think just like all of the EA Sports titles, it's going to over deliver in terms of people's expectations."
-- Jon Robinson